We met in person last night and she told me she was Googling answers for an upcoming exam and memorize them because she didn’t have notes for some of what was on her professor’s review sheet…
When I told her I think its cheating and for her to just ask a friend from her class for missing notes, she said she cant because she only has one friend in the whole class who does not go online often and who never exchanged numbers with her…
Obviously, I cant do much about it since I dont have the class with her, but I still think this should be considered cheating since she’s going to Google and memorize answers before an exam…
Is she Googling questions and answers like “What is the mitochondria’s function?” Google says, “the powerhouse of the cell” and she memorizes that? Or is she Googling “Prof Smith Bio 101 semester exam” and memorizing the answers like “What is the mitochondria’s function?” “A.”?
No she wasn’t googling exams…She was just googling questions based on missing info from her review sheet, which she said, basically has the same questions her professor said her class’ exam will…
Yup… not cheating at all, just studying in a different ways. I use Quizlets (online flashcards) that others have created for a subject I’ll test on. I don’t know the questions I’ll have on the exam and neither, apparently, does your friend. Just a way of memorizing what might or will likely be on the exam. This is a time you should probably stay in your lane.
Good for her for coming up with a creative way to study. The only problem my students run into when doing something like this is that Google usually doesn’t frame the terms they’re looking for in the way that they were used in the class, but for basic questions like the examples posted above, it would probably work.
What your friend is doing is good for objective facts - such as dates, scientific terms, formulae, and so on but for “bigger picture” ideas presented in class, Google won’t be as helpful.
The point of a review sheet is to have what will “basically” be on the exam; so her looking up answers to the review sheet is not cheating, but effective reviewing.
Stuff found on the web for a particular concept may be (a) written as a reference for someone who is generally familiar with the subject, or (b) written as a tutorial for beginners. The reference (a) may not be easy to read by the student, while the tutorial (b) might not be as in depth compared to what one learned in class. So while looking stuff up on the web can be effective in many cases, it is not guaranteed to produce suitable results in all cases.
Looking up answers related to the potential exam material and then “memorizing” them for the test isn’t cheating, that’s just plain studying, albeit probably not the best way to go about doing it.
Does she have access to an unauthorized copy of the exam or a past exam? That could be considered cheating in some circumstances.
Edit: Checked the previous posts. Yep, she’s not cheating.